I’m a strong believer in the power of human intuition, but at the same time I want to understand it from a scientific point of view. I want to know when and if I can trust my intuitive sense. I don’t want to just intuitively accept intuition as a reliable form of knowledge. In this article and the next, I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned about intuition and under what circumstances science has found it to serve us well or not serve us so well. A lot of credit for this material goes to David G. Myers and his excellent book Intuition: Its Powers and Perils.

What is Intuition

In short it is the acquisition or access to knowledge without the use of reason. It’s direct knowledge without the conscious rational processes we normally call “thinking”. For example, when you first meet someone you instantly and unconsciously make all kinds of intuitive judgments about them. This sizing up of a person is happening in your non-conscious mind. Your non-conscious mind processes vast amounts of information that you are not aware of at a conscious level. We really are of two minds and the science behind it all is amazing, but that is another topic.

When Intuition Doesn’t Work Well

Confidence in our abilities

We are intuitively overconfident of our own abilities in all kinds of areas. To cite just one extreme example: In a study of 800,000 students, 100% of them rated themselves at or above average in their ability in dealing with other people. 60% put themselves in the top 10% and 25% of them put themselves in the top 1%. They intuitively felt they were socially talented. Here is a humbling summary of research on overconfidence:

“People think they will be able to solve problems when they wont; they are highly confident that they are on the verge of producing the correct answer when they are, in fact, about to produce a mistake; they think they have solved problems when they haven’t; they think they know the answers to information questions when they don’t; they think they have the answer on the tip of their tongue when there is no answer; they think they produced the correct answer when they didn’t, and furthermore, they say they knew it all along; they believe they have mastered learning material when they haven’t; they think they have understood, even though demonstrably they are still in the dark.” – Janet Metcalfe

Knowing why we do things

Study after study has shown that we are very poor at knowing why we do things. Our intuitions in this regard are very unreliable. Sometimes we just make something up. It seems that once we act we have to have reasons for those actions. When the influences are either hidden or subtle, our intuitions about why we acted can be radically mistaken.

Predicting our Feelings

Studies clearly show that we are not good at predicting how we are going to react emotionally to various situations. We are particularly bad at our intuition of the intensity and duration of those emotions.

Predicting our behavior

Just like predicting our feelings, we aren’t that great at predicting what we are going to do. However, there is an interesting twist to this one. We are fairly good at predicting how others will behave. Our actual behavior matches more closely our predictions for others than it does our predictions for ourselves.

Illusory Correlations

We are pattern seeking animals and we intuitively find find patterns in the random. Arthritis sufferers believe their pain is worse under certain weather conditions, but those same patients’ actual pain reports are uncorrelated with any particular weather condition. We perceive relations where none exist.

Risk

Our intuitions of risk stink. We are afraid of spectacular or uncommon risks, but downplay the common risks. People will stay out of the water because they are afraid of sharks, but they will readily swim when they are far more likely to drown than be attacked by a Great White. People are afraid of new risks, but comfortable with the familiar. Whose afraid of West Nile virus now? On the other hand the whole country is freaking out over a new flu strain that so far hasn’t even approached the death rate of the seasonal flu.

Probability

We are decent with small numbers, but once they get larger than a few we don’t do well at all. We give much more weight to a probability of 2,000 in 10,000 than 2 in 10 even though they are they are the same. What’s even worse, we think 1 in 7 is less likelythan 10 in 100. It seems the numerator is what counts. 10 seems intuitively more likely than 1, regardless of the denominator. The following is my favorite all time lottery statistic. If you buy a lottery ticket on Monday, you are 2,500 times more likely to die before the lottery drawing on Saturday than you are to win the jackpot.

Interviews

Whether it is therapists or doctors interviewing patients or employers interviewing prospective employees, we don’t do well with informal interviews. If you are an employer, use an aptitude test. If you are a clinician, use a computerized analysis of question answers. In both cases your results will improve.

Sports

I love this one. There has been a lot of research on the “hot hand” phenomenon. Everyone just knows that a basketball player, for example, goes through hot and cold shooting streaks right? Well, yes and no. His shots are streaky, but it turns out that they are no more streaky than would be expected from a random distribution of his overall shooting percentage. Counter-intuitive maybe, but it is hard to argue with the research. The same thing applies to hot and cold winning or losing streaks by sports teams. In this regard, imagine two people; one who actually flips a coin 100 times and another who makes up a fake series of 100 coin flips. An expert can easily determine which one is the fake series just by looking at the results. The one which looks more “random” will be the fake series. The true coin flip series will have longer streaks of heads and tails than people intuitively believe would occur by chance. The faker doesn’t include enough streaks.

My answer is that I’ve never been so sure about intuition. In order for me to believe something, I usually want to have 100% logical or scientific explanation, not a pseudo science explanation stemmed by the wonders of our universe.

I do however, have times where I always trust a certain intuition that I have. For example, everytime I forget something like my wallet, I feel something inside of me telling me that I’ve lost something and need to go back and look. It’s a feeling I can’t describe, but usually also always right.

Maybe there are factors that our five senses cannot pick up, and thus we have to rely on intuition.

P.S. As I was about to hit submit on this intuition reply, I felt an earthquake shockwave under my seat. (Gulp)
.-= Tristan Lee´s last blog ..The Illusion of Success =-.

Excellent question! I would like to quote on this one from a recent article of mine called “Knowing what others think and feel: you don’t”:

“Your intuition about this kind of stuff can only be trusted if it’s very well in tune with the objective reality around you. Which most probably, it’s not. Because more probably, your intuition filters your judgments through a couple of deep routed irrational beliefs.”

You may find this surprising but, science isn’t able to explain everything because it starts from premises WE decide upon. The way we phrase the question limits the answers we can observe.

However, if you want a scientific explanation for why science often falls short in cases of acausal relationships (one thing does not logically follow from, nor is caused by another, yet is still somehow related), you could read Jung’s book on Synchronicity.

Hi Lisis. Thanks for commenting. That’s not surprising to me. In fact you will find that scientists will say it more than the average person. They know better than anyone how difficult their job is and how little we know. However in regards to how successful we are with intuition, these things can be tested. You don’t have to be able to “explain” it to determine whether it works or not. The results are what they are.

Also I’m not ready to give up on rationally understanding intuition. The progress made since the 1990’s is amazing. With modern equipment we can now literally watch people’s brains at work.

Yes, in some areas. My first sentence in this blog article was “I’m a strong believer in the power of human intuition…”. The areas where it has been found to work are the subject of the next article. This is obviously a very new field and I suspect we are going to learn a great deal more in the coming years. I just don’t want to fall prey to the problem listed first, overconfidence in my own abilities in regards to intuition.

The best scientific explanation I have read about intuition and why it works is related to our evolution as a species. From the time the very first bipedal apes came down out of the trees and began a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, our greatest enemies have been other tribes.

Our earliest ancestors depended on sizing up strangers quickly, and forming snap judgements in order to survive. “Friend or Foe?” was the first question we learned to process on our path to becoming modern-day humans. We learned to process all kinds of sensory input incredibly fast…so fast that it became automatic, and a part of our subconscious mind.

Today, we call it intuition. We don’t know WHY we feel certain things, or believe certain things, we just do. Our brains are processing facts faster than our conscious minds can keep up, so that we can make quick decisions which might save our life.

The problem is that we no longer depend on our intuition for survival, except in rare cases. In the modern world, it’s usually better to wait until you have all the information before proceeding. This is where our logic and rational minds struggle against our animal instincts. Sometimes, this is a good thing, sometimes not.

That’s why our intuition fails us, sometimes. It isn’t designed to judge odds, or calculate position. That’s the job of the rational mind. Intuition should be used to keep us safe from danger.
.-= Jay Schryer´s last blog ..The Perfectionism Myth =-.

Hi Jay, great comment! Many of those skills that served our ancestors so well are no longer needed. We need to temper those impulses with our conscious mind. However, many other skills still do serve us well. I think the key is the wisdom to know the difference between what works and what doesn’t.

Hi Dani. Thanks for dropping by to comment. Intuition always just seemed to be new-age mystical to me. It has only been in the last 5 years or so that I’ve actually started trusting in it and wondering what it was all about.

Hi Vin, I’m a very logic driven person too. Interestingly enough, there is some research that suggests our non-conscious mind is smarter than our conscious logic. We’ve got a lot of brainpower hidden in there somewhere 🙂

I had several occassions in my life recently where my intution gave me the right solution to the problems I couldn’t have possibly solved if I tried to do it logically. Last time it happened it felt almost like a miracle. The more we are aligned with our non-conscious mind, or our Higher Self how some call it and the less limiting beliefs we have, the more we can rely on our intition. They say meditation helps a lot with that. I’ve been meditating alot lately, so I guess it explains why my intuition works so well recently.
.-= Lana-DreamFollowers Blog´s last blog ..Why Positive Thinking Doesn’t Work =-.

Hey Stephen. This was an interesting article. I can’t wait to pick up the book that you mentioned to read more about the author’s thoughts and ideas.

In my opinion, Science is NOT the right arena for studying intuition.

A survey of questions/answers about a person’s confidence doesn’t reflect intuition. The scientific analysis is about how these people ranked themselves (what they wrote on paper)…not necessarily about what they actually sensed inside.

For most people who aren’t aware of their 6th sense, a prediction is made with rational thought rather than the use of intuition. They think, do and believe all kinds of things that have nothing to do with being intuitive. If anything, most people’s actions and beliefs are the result of their lack of intuitiveness. This is not a bad or good thing… it’s just how most of us operate in this society.

A scientist can’t measure your intuitive sense. S/he can ask you survey questions, but your answers will always come from the rational mind….not the intuition.

Most people are so out-of-touch with their intuitive self that they can’t tell you anything without relying on stored thoughts and beliefs. They lack conscious awareness of their inner-self, so they can’t communicate it to others.

Once you ask a person to think, write, recall, and get rational….. intuition is basically taken out of the picture. It can only be measured inside…. by the person who feels/senses it. Can’t blame the Scientists for trying, though.
.-= Nea | Self Improvement Saga´s last blog ..Are You Journaling for Self Development Success or Failure? =-.

Nea, thank you for your very thoughtful comment. I do however disagree. I would ask you to reflect on the fact that you just used your rational mind to make a point to me. I wonder how you would have done that with intuition? I would suggest to you that you are using your conscious rational mind to justify your intuition, whether you realize it or not.

Wow. I love this post Stephen. And the first point is so true. We are all too confident in ourselves sometimes, which is bad since if we think too highly of ourselves, we won’t feel the need to improve ourselves.
.-= Karlil´s last blog ..The Lazy Man’s Guide To Beating Procrastination =-.

Although we are indeed Predictably Irrational and misinformed I have to agree with Bunny in listening to your gut. Your subconscious is very powerful and makes decision based on every experience you have ever had in your lifetime. It analyzes that in seconds and the resulting answer is your gut feeling.

Hi Jonny and thanks for stopping in and joining the conversation. I guess I would refer you to my response to Nea. Also to refer to the first item “overconfidence” and to my next article in the series.

Hi Stephen, this is very interesting, and really provokes thought and discussion. I am fascinated by the mind and how little science really knows about its workings. My opinion, based partially on my own experience, and partially on reading others who have investigated this (like Jung, as Lisis mentions) is that intuition exists and that we really don’t know how to connect with it all that well. I think it’s pretty non-verbal. A “gut-feeling” would describe it sometimes, a “sense” might describe it at others. I also think practices like silencing the “thinking” mind through mediation can put us more in touch with it. I don’t think that it has much to do with logic (or mistaken logic, as described above with the numbers example). A mathematician would instantly recognize that 1 in 7 are better odds than 10 in 100, but that’s based on his or her training, so is that really intuition? Or is that “learned” or “acquired” knowledge, which is what intuition is not supposed to be? Also, another question I’d have for the author is how does science measure when people are following their intuition or when they just think they are? Do irrational fears (like that shark example) really have anything to do with intuition at all? Or is that more imagination? And where do these two intersect, and where are they separate?

I believe intuition is connected to a higher, universal knowing. I know science can’t prove this true, but it hasn’t proven it false, either. (I also had an interesting experience years ago that totally defied all odds of “probability” – I was tired, resting on the sofa and my 3 and a half year old daughter had 8 different colored new paint brushes she just took out of the package. She asked me to guess the color she was holding. I guessed right. She asked me again. I guessed right. This went on for almost 20 minutes… I couldn’t guess one wrong!! I started freaking out about how unreal this was and how maybe my daughter and I have some otherwordly “sixth sense” connection, and how cool that could be… I was also wishing we were being recorded or that someone was around to witness this. At any rate, I wanted to “test” our connection so I took the paint brushes and had her guess. Normal, random right and wrong guesses. Too bad. So I thought maybe it was a one-way thing; I gave the paint brushes back to her so I could guess again. Again, normal, random, right and wrong guesses. That “phenomenal” event, whatever it was that I had experienced, was over. Was that a “hot streak”? Or was that something else?)

This is really a great discussion to open up… too bad you don’t have a forum! Looking forward to the discussions that follow and the next post!

Hi Miche. That was a very thoughtful comment. Please read my second article. First of all, intuition is defined as any non-conscious non-reasoning thought. So yes the “math” stuff is intuition. Think about it this way. Any adult of normal intelligence can easily reason it out. 10 in 100 is the same as 1 in 10 and 1 in 10 is clearly less likely than 1 in 7. That is reason. The problem is most people don’t reason it out. They go with their gut, their intuitive sense that 10 in 100 is more likely. Human intuition is demonstrably bad with probabilities and risk. The evidence is clear. It is not that it takes higher math skill or training to figure it out. We didn’t evolve with that kind of environment. Our brains don’t handle numbers bigger than 3 very well.

Yes the shark fear is intuition. Our intuition on risk has been demonstrated to be poor in any number of ways (familiarity, control, etc.). I suspect I’m intuitively more afraid of sharks than drowning, but I’m so probability conscious that I take time to understand real probabilities.

As far as your daughter goes maybe somehow in the first instance she was somehow giving you clues that you didn’t consciously realize. Maybe it was a total coincidence. There are people who won multiple lotteries where the odds were trillions to one against it. However the odds are likely that it would happen to someone sometime. We pick out of the jillions (how’s that for a scientific number?) of possibilities those things that stand out and don’t notice the jillions -1 that didn’t turn out so freaky. Your experience isn’t that unusual.

I don’t think intuition is connected to some universal knowing. I think it is just our amazing brain doing amazing things under the covers where our conscious mind can’t get to it. We are amazed at what we don’t understand. I think someday science will figure it out.

Hi Stephen, I did read the second article and am glad you’ve written about this very interesting subject. I guess where I disagree with this author is the criteria he sets forth to study intuition, and perhaps his very definition of it.

Though I am not really able to define it myself, my own idea of it is that it is somehow outside everything “learned”. And numbers, the shark fear, to me that’s all learned. Numbers are symbols that we learn, something animals can’t learn (much the same that language itself is really just symbols). The fear of sharks is learned, too. Unless I’ve had my own encounter with one, which would make it a direct experience, it’s a learned or acquired fear upon which I have no “real” — or direct — basis.

I guess I think of intuition as more closely related to instinct than to anything associated with language or learning. But like I said, I can’t totally define it in a way that a psychologist would be able to study it. I guess for me intuition falls somewhere in the realm of what the philosopher Wittgenstein was referring to when he wrote:

“If the answer cannot be put into words, the question, too, cannot be put into words. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, it can also be answered.”

Sort of the ineffable stuff, you know? If we can put a question we can answer it.

As far as the incident with my daughter, there were no hints. She was too young to realize the significance of what was happening. I just “saw” the paintbrush color she was holding every time. Weird, I know!!

I love this topic. Here is my take on it. Yes,you should trust your intuitive sense. But only if you can be honest with yourself that your “intuition” did not come based on thinking from past happenings or future hopes. By believing there is no”right” and no “wrong” with your intuition,you respond to your enviroment and stimulis around you. However, a high percentage of the times we are not using true intuition,we are reprocessing thoughts from the past or creating wishful thinking for the future.

I believe that we are not good at predicting our feelings or behaviors because we choose not to pay attention to our obvious learned patterns.But it is much easier to predict others because we witness their patterns. It is not common for someone to pay attention to their own thought patterns for the purpose of predicting behavior or feelings. We deny these patterns exist and believe we are acting on our intuition.

Intuition comes to most when they are in the “zone”. Unfortunately, we spend more time “zoned out”.

Hi Derrik and thanks for commenting on this. That was a very interesting and thoughtful comment. I really think there is a lot of insight there and I’m going to reflect on it for a while. Thanks again!

That’s really interesting and as always, you managed to give a really good overview of what doesn’t work with intuition.

Lately (as in the last 4-5 years) I learned to trust my intuition. I don’t know if it’s only subconscious thinking involved in this process, maybe it’s something even bigger than that, but what I can tell you is that my intuition saved me from a few serious mistakes. All odds were really favorable but something told me not to go. And I was right. Looking forward for the next one, to see when intuition really works 🙂
.-= Dragos Roua´s last blog ..Lifestyle Design =-.

I have a very strong connection with my intuition. I’ve been tapping into my intuition for many, many years ie. since I was a very young child. My personality type is INFJ. (introspective, intuitive, feeling, judgment)
* I follow my heart
* I listen to my inner voice
* I trust my feelings
* I often experience information that just comes to mind without seeking it
* I often anticipate future events and “see” them, ahead of time
* I frequently see, feel, and hear things that prove to be accurate later on

I’m a dreamer and sometimes I’m a lucid dreamer. I record and analyze my dreams to ascertain what’s going on at my core. My dreams inform me at a deep personal level of my responses to events that have happened, events that are happening now, and events that are yet to come.

“Dreaming, in its purest form, is witnessing life just as it is. We perceive from the moment of our birth. As infants, our minds are unformed and silent. There are no words describing our perception. There are no concepts narrating our emotions. Returning to that state of silent mind, through dreaming, we intensify awareness. In the silence created by absence of thought, we open to perception.” Don Miguel Ruiz
.-= timethief´s last blog ..Marcome: River of Soul =-.

Hi Stephen,
Nicely organized post here.
I usually believe in the power of intuition, when it’s backed up by some kind of initial rational knowledge. I think that the combination of these two, the rational and the irrational make up the best solution to almost any given problem. Just that different situations require different proportions of the two 🙂

I strongly recommend that you read the book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” by Malcolm Gladwell. It is an excellent book that gives really good examples about how intuition works and how fatal it is when it doesn’t. Thanks for a good article.
.-= Sara´s last blog ..Your Presence =-.

intuition is real. But can get confused. Some One could get an intuition and feel like something bad is going to happen when actually something good happens. But The longer u Know it The more U train and get it right to were, eventualy, u hardly ever make mistakes (i said Hardly/Rarely Not that u NEVER U will always have 1 or 2 errors thats the way the world is.) I Know Alot because i grew up with this “intuition” But When i was Younger I didnt know what that was. I Just called an Extra Sence. First I had weird dreams That, even just a part of the dream, Became real soon after. I thought it might have just been a coincidence. But Then When i Started getting a little older (im 14 right now turning 15) I Would Walk By some one and all i had to do was look at them and would either feel this really painful sadness or Something That Made Me So happy inside(even if i wasnt) and I realized i can Read People Aura. But its no accurate unless i know them real well. Like I Could feel some one is troubled but cant tell if they are Happy/Sad/Mad. But like with my sisters my dad and my friends They Cant get By Me xD One Time i felt sadness from My dad and out of nowhere i asked him wat was wrong. and He got this Freaked out expression and said Nothings Wrong. And I was like, Are u Sure nothings wrong? And Then He Told me. I didnt look at him either I was Messing on my laptop making amvs and i just heard him walk outside and felt it. Im still kinda Curious Why I have this “power” There are so many Sad people around me and I can feel their pain and It just makes me sad all the time. And i just want to help them But some people like my dad rather handle it alone so i leave them be but it never stops bothering me. Also My sisters BOTH had a dream That My Grandma Died. And I had bad feelings evry time i thought about her or was near her. And I had a Strange Dream That didnt actually show my grandma But Showed a funeral i Dont think i told ny1 cuz i dont think ny1 would believe me. But when My sisters told me i was shocked and happy i wasnt alone. Well After we had those dreams Our Grandma died. And When i came home,Saw My dad’s Face I knew it but kept trying to deny it in my mind then He told us…And My sister Went in like a Shocked state. She wouldnt talk much or do The things she loved. and then one night my oldest sister found her crying that our grandma was dead And we were like She’s Died a week Ago Sis =[ And she was like i know. But it was rlly weird. and One Day i looked at my dad who came home and Said..Something bad has happened Something really terrible. I think it has something to with some1 close to us. And my dad was like Oh ur imagining things. and right when i was about to think so, my dad read the paper…..One Of my Sisters best friends had died the day b4 that in a car reck. She Went over the center line and Crashed into another car no1 knows y. But the mom of the other car and Rivas Friend died The 3 kids survived. Then my dad Kinda Looked at me and I said I knew it. O_O This is true Say wat u want think me a liar but its true.